Deadwood

Inspired by the brilliance of the Sopranos I've started to work my way through some of the other shows from American TV station HBO. You can pick up most of the good stuff on DVD from CD-WOW at a reasonable price. I started with Deadwood.

Deadwood had been getting some good reviews. It has only slightly impinged on my thoughts because of an energetic advertising campaign. I don't have easy access to Sky so I haven't really seen any of it. I knew that former lovejoy cheese-merchant Iain McShane was involved. Generally not a good sign.

Still, I was curious. The DVD cost £18 - S.F.A. Worth a shot. It was better than I expected.

The show is set in the mining outpost of Deadwood on Native American land in the America of the 1870s. The town is full of thieves and scoundrels. Most of the characters are not very nice. A few of the characters are based on real people including Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane.

McShane is actually pretty good here as Saloon keeper/pimp/general scumbag Al Swearengen. He strikes an uneasy balance between pure evil and charisma (although not as much charisma as Tony Soprano). It pisses all over Lovejoy.

The hero of the show is Seth Bullock, a decent man and former sherrif who is trying to make his forture despite being in constant thrall to his morals.

The show is gritty with a constant air of squalor. People die with alarming regularity and the town is in continual entropy. The primative medicine of the doctor is well portrayed. The language is shocking - there is enough use of the words 'cocksucker' and 'motherfucker' to embarras a busload of Glasweigan schoolkids. I like it. I'm waiting for series 2 to come in the post.

Funky